The Hindu : New Delhi News : Timing of Sheila's letter questioned

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Apr 30, 2004

New Delhi

New Delhi

Timing of Sheila's letter questioned

By Sujay Mehdudia

NEW DELHI, APRIL 29. The strongly worded letter shot off by the Chief Minister, Sheila Dikshit, to the BSES Chairman, Anil Ambani, this past week-end has come a bit too late in the day and questions are being raised about its timing. Though the non-performance of BSES had come under critical review a few months ago, Ms. Dikshit and her senior bureaucrats had chosen to ignore the issue raised by the party MLAs.

The Opposition, which has been crying foul over privatisation of power transmission ever since it was introduced in the Capital, is up on its feet now in the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections. The Bharatiya Janata Party feels that the Congress-run Delhi Government cannot shy away from the problems facing the power consumers in areas managed by BSES at present. It is a 49 per cent stakeholder in the power discoms with the majority 51 per cent share held by the private companies. The manner in which the Government has sought to throw up its hands and project a helpless situation is surprising. The Government in the past had gone out of its way to appease the private power companies and even bail them out during hearings in the Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission (DERC).

"If the Government is unhappy with the functioning of the private companies, it should file a complaint with the regulator something that it has been telling the consumers repeatedly. Why should the Government let these companies off the hook and not proceed against them through proper channel," the Delhi BJP secretary, Vijender Gupta, remarked.

In fact, the Central Government had sounded the Delhi Government recently on the failure of the BSES to perform and implement the reforms process. The recent warning by the Union Power Secretary, R.V. Sahai, lamenting the performance of BSES and stating that it could throw the power reforms off the track in Delhi went unheard. It is an open secret that the situation in the areas manned by the BSES is not good and the elected representatives of Delhi's citizens have charged the company with not fully investing the money allocated to it for upgradation of infrastructure.

In comparison, the North Delhi Power Limited-NDPL's performance has been very satisfactory and the numbers of complaints or consumer grievances against it have been very low. The complaint centres set up by NDPL are far more satisfactory, although there is always scope for improvement in the working in various spheres.

However, the timing of Ms. Dikshit's letter to the heads of both the power companies is according to political observers somewhat surprising. The intention behind this move may be right, but in a politically charged atmosphere everything is seen and read with a certain motive by the political representatives or the electorate. In fact, even Ms. Dikshit said that the complaints had been coming in before the Delhi Assembly elections last winter. She said the MLAs as well as other Congress leaders had brought to her notice and that of senior bureaucrats the shoddy working of the BSES power company and its failure to attend to even basic complaints. However, the protests had gone unattended. Nothing has worked out as the local faults and breakdowns have become a common thing at a time when the summer has not peaked and the power supply is surplus.

Interestingly, while the power companies were under fire for under-performance or non-performance, senior bureaucrats at the helm in the Chief Minister's Office and the State Power Department were busy playing favourites to these companies at the cost of the common man. In fact, the former Secretary (Power), Jagdish Sagar, had even suggested further dilution of the Delhi Government's share in the discoms.

"If today the Delhi Government is faced with a serious situation on the power front, it has itself to blame. It has failed to act against the private companies and continues to give them leverage at the cost of the common man. The BSES may have badly let down the Sheila Dikshit Government, but then it is their own doing," a senior Minister remarked.

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